Democracy Isn’t the Voting — It’s the Counting

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt: The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Today’s Republicans: The only thing we have to fear is a large voter turnout.

The storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6^th by American citizens brought home to all Americans the danger of using inflammatory language from ex-President Trump and Arizona’s duly elected congressional and state representatives. This storming of the Capitol was perhaps a rebellion, like the War of 1812 when invading British troops set fire to the U.S. Capitol. All Americans would have formed a United Front.

Sadly, this storming of the Capitol was caused not only by a sitting U.S. President but also by Fox News and with social media sites and others claiming that somehow the election for President was rigged.

Logically, the next step for Republicans was to claim because the election was rigged, and to claim our election system was broken. They claim that too many people voted who should not have, and all mail-in ballots should be subject to audit.

Here in Arizona, it didn’t take long for some Republican Legislature to come up with some quick fixes to a non-existing problem.

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  Republicans in Arizona are moving to approve new restrictions on county recorders’ ability to conduct voter registration drives. The measure by Sen. Michelle Ugenti-Rita (R-Scottsdale) limits such sign-ups to government buildings. She said this takes politics out of the equation by precluding recorders from picking and choosing where to set up shop based on which group they hope to get registered.

But Sen. Martin Quezada (D-Glendale) claimed, “County recorders are most likely to go to communities that are underrepresented in terms of their voter registration numbers.” What he said makes sense. Those communities tend to be black and brown, and they tend to be poor,” according to Capitol Media Services.

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  Unhappy with election results Senate President Karen Fann (R-Prescott) proposed, State Senators go ahead with their general election audit. Later, Fann agreed to back down from her demand for a Senate audit after the county said it would conduct its own. Attorney Kory Langhofer, who represents the Senate said there is nothing in the county review to identify voters who may have cast more than one ballot.

The Senate also wants a review of “spoiled” ballots and what election workers used to determine a voter’s intent. The Senate also wants a review of the cybersecurity of the voting and tabulation machines, he said. But the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has designated vote-tabulation equipment as “critical election infrastructure, and if the source code from our tabulation equipment is exposed and posted online, that could jeopardize the integrity of voting systems across the country.”

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  State Rep. Shawnna Bolick (R-Phoenix) proposed HB 2720 that would allow the Arizona Legislature to overturn presidential election results even after the governor and secretary of state formally certify the count and even after Congress counts the state’s electors. The bill also contains a series of provisions designed to make it easier for those unhappy with elections to go to court. It also would allow challengers to demand a jury trial and, more to the point, barring a trial judge or an appellate court from throwing out the case, even for lack of evidence, before the jurors get to rule. That would affect the rules of court procedures that are set up and overseen by the Arizona Supreme Court, on which her husband, Clint Bolick, serves.

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  Then there is the Oath Keepers’ own Rep. Mark Finchem (R-Oro Valley), who argues that the “U.S. Constitution gives Arizona lawmakers plenary authority” to determine who gets the state’s electoral votes. But the Legislature was not in session, and House Speaker Russell Bowers rebuffed his efforts to call a hearing. So Finchem and others decided to conduct their unofficial hearing away from the state Capitol in late November to hear allegations from Donald Trump’s legal team that the election was rigged. That event had all the legal authority and effect of a political rally.

• Finally, Chief Justice Robert Brutinel said that out of over the 27,869 ballots that had been duplicated would have gained Trump no more than 153 votes, which would not have affected the outcome of the Arizona election, which Biden won by more than 10,000 votes.

Keep the voting down

Republican State legislatures across the country have one purpose: to keep the voting down in certain communities. Their methods include Gerrymandering, restricting mail-in voting, getting rid of motor vote laws, restricting mail-in voting, and restricting ballot collection.

But former Republican Senator Don Shooter topped them all when he claimed that Microwave Voter Fraud was occurring a few years ago. With no proof other than hearing about groups that collect large numbers of ballots, putting them in a microwave with a bowl of water, and steaming them open to change the ballots. He had no proof, but he wanted it stopped. He didn’t realize that if this was occurring, then this must be the reason Republicans keep on winning.

Just as President Ronald Reagan once said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”

Now, the most terrifying words for the Republican Party are, “I’m an American citizen, and I’m here to vote.”